Rebirth: On the edge of tommorow
by boothnat
Summary: Ever since the mimics came, our world got worse and worse. We had to change everything about ourselves to fight them. Morals came and went, but the mimics refused to fall. Then, one day with the exosuits, we got hope. While its true that about half the people who get modified to wear one die, who cares?
1. Chapter 1

I've heard that all good stories start from the beginning.

So I suppose that mine should as well.

It all began on our world, the one we know and love. The one we refer to as 'Earth'.

The thing is, our Earth was unique. It wasn't just a planet in a sea of stars. It was the only planet in that sea of stars.

Of course, we didn't know that when the mimics came.

It took us much longer to understand.

The mimics weren't just alien invaders.

They were something more.

You see, while our planet is the only one we will ever find in our sea of stars, there are many, many other seas out there. The multiverse theory, or the theory that there is a universe representing every single possibility to ever exist in all of space-time was right.

I would know, I've been to quite a few of them. It all started in a world probably not unlike yours….

The invasion changed many things. Technological advancement began to go incredibly fast. In almost no time at all, we went from having soldiers utilizing pea shooters to soldiers using highly advanced exosuits.

Going up against a mimic in anything other than an exosuit was suicide, and even with one, it took around three soldiers to gun down one of the monstrosities.

Hell, even getting into an exosuit was nearly impossible for the average human. The human body just wasn't ready for the upgrades provided by the suits. The body had to be modified, _fused_ with the suit. Few survived the process.

Few were willing to take the risk.

Slowly, the world became like something out of the books. First military service became compulsory. Then, if your name got picked out of a ballot, you became an exo-wielder.

I was one of the unlucky bastards who got his name picked.

Or lucky, depending on how you think about it.

"Thank god it's over."  
"What do you mean?"  
"The procedure. It's over. We survived. We got lucky."  
I frowned.

"Yeah, but what makes you think we'll survive combat?"  
"Hey, it's better than dying in a lab. Think about it. Get killed in a lab, and you'll just be forgotten. Die a hero, defending the world from these things? That's the kinda thing that gets put in movies."

He clearly hadn't ever seen combat. I chuckled, and started as I heard a gasp coming from one of the newly occupied seats. I looked over at the newly awakened guy…

And noticed he looked exactly like that movie star from those movies I used to watch when I was a kid.

He was freaking Tom Cruise, or at least a dead ringer for him.

He was panicking.

"The hell? Where am I? Who are you? WHY AM I STRAPPED DOWN?"  
I waited. Everyone behaved like this after surgery. I did five minutes ago. The other three to arrive had done the same thing so far. He wasn't the first, and he wasn't the last.

It took him a minute to calm himself. After he seemed to no longer be in danger of having a panic attack, I reached over…

And poked him.

He stared at me.

"Hey."  
He just stared.

"Where you from?"  
He shook his head.

"Hey, you gonna answe-"  
"No." He finally spoke."This is wrong. I didn't join here! I'm the PR guy! I'm not meant for combat!"  
I stared at them, my eyebrows raised as high as they could go.

"Then why the hell can't I recognize you? Government officials are pretty well known around here."  
He stared at me, then slowly began to touch his face. He moved his palms across it, growing more nervous by the second.

"Man,I need a-"  
"LISTEN UP!"

The guy, who for now I shall call Tom Cruise, was somewhat rudely interrupted by a soldier boarding the VTOL.

"YOU PEOPLE ARE THE ONLY ONES FROM THIS SHIT-HOLE WHO SURVIVED!  
YOU MAY THINK THIS MAKES YOU SPECIAL, THAT THIS MAKES YOU STRONG, BUT IT DOSEN'T! THE ONLY FREAKING THING THIS PROVES, IS THAT THE REST OF THE PEOPLE HERE ARE FREAKING PUSSIES!"  
I leaned over, and whispered-

"Notice how he dosen't have any augmentations."  
He was still panicking. Geez, what the hell was wrong with him? So, in order to reduce the level of panic in the room, I used my ultimate calm-the-fuck down ability.

I tickled him.

Unfortunately, he seemed to be rather tickle-resistant. On the plus side, he stopped panicking. On the minus side, he was looking at me like I was nuts.

Hey, I wasn't the one panicking.

As the massive M-14 VTOL Blackhawk(which obviously, was black) began to take off, I reflected on all the empty seats. Every single empty seat represented a person who had died.

A person who failed the augmentation.

A person who probably hadn't wanted to be there.

There were ten seats in the VTOL, and of them, only four were occupied.

It took the Blackhawk two hours to go from the place I called home to the mountains. While it was aided by booster checkpoints, those still some goddamn impressive speeds.

We were being deployed somewhere in the country of India, in a place called 'North Bengal.' We were going to land in a village. Nobody remembered what it had once been called, and very few people particularly cared.

The mimics and how to kill them were all that most people could really think of at the moment. The names of their victims were relatively….. unimportant.

And now our trials would begin.

We would have to get to the forward operating base, which was a few kilometers away from where we were.

For you Americans, that's five or six miles.

The massive craft, while quick and well armed, was ill equipped for the close, compact terrain found in this hilly region. Anti air flak was common, even this far from the front line. The soldier with us forced us out, and I finally got a good look at where we were.

I could barely tell that there had once been a village here.

Massive charred spots marked where there may have once been houses or shops. Here and there, a few lonely walls were visible. But the one sign that proved to us that people had once lived here were the bones.

They coated the ground, near a particularly large structure that seemed relatively unharmed compared to the devastation around it. The people who once lived in this place hadn't just been slaughtered. They had been herded, then burned to death.

There was nothing that needed to be said. There was nothing that could be said. There were mimics in the area, and we had to warn the forward operating base.

So, in silence, we trudged on, surrounded by those we were too late to save.


	2. Chapter 2

The soldier was all for an epic trudge to the forward operating base in order to warn everyone of the mimics in the area, until one of us reminded him that we had cell phones.

I laughed in his face.

Yeah, I was the one who reminded him.

I would have continued laughing, until he pointed out that A. there is no bloody signal in the mountains, and B. pretty much any signals attract mimics.

Well shit, we would know that if we were actually taught anything before being thrown into combat.

So epic trudge it was then.

We were walking. Walking with massive steep mountain on one side, and oh-so beautiful vista on the other. The village was already far behind. The vista may have been beautiful, with stunning mountains, high peaks, and all that stuff, but after a few miles, it got kinda monotonous.

The "beautiful wildlife" was probably extinct by now, and no matter how beautiful plants may be, they still get boring after hours of walking around.

So, obviously, I, the lazy, never-pays-attention guy, was completely ready for the mimic that popped up just as we were passing the ruins of a hut.

What? You don't last a week without a suit without learning this stuff.

The moment the mimic appeared, I was ready. Both grenade launcher and machine gun opened up on full auto while everyone else was still reeling. The damned thing had come out of the ground on a ledge just above the rocky path we were standing on.

You see, the real reason it takes so many men to kill a mimic is because they're so fast, and they always surprise you. They aren't that durable. One shot from a grenade to center mass, or two grenades, is enough to kill them. The machine gun is useless except to make sure the damned thing is dead.

I made a rookie mistake. I didn't prepare for more of them.

As the creature was blown apart, two more appeared. One of them jumped Cruise I was reloading. There was nothing I could do.

As the mimic dug its tendrils from his flesh with a horrid squelch, the fourth character who had been augmented jumped the mimic with, and you won't believe this, a _sword_. Now say what you want to about bringing knives to gun fights, but it was freaking effective. The black creature was cut in half, it's yellow glowy bits losing colour as it fell off of the path, Cruise still stuck in it's grasp….

Just as the other one jumped the girl who MUST have been that Rita character, and tore her in half.

Literally.

The soldier finally showed his true colours.

He grabbed his sniper rifle and calmly put an anti materiel round through center mass before the mimic could even drop Rita's body parts. It was killed instantly.

Of course, there was nothing I could do to prepare for what came next.

A roar filled the air. A massive mimic, this one quadrapedal, tinged in blue rather than yellow, with tentacles sprouting out of it's neck, fell onto the path, crushing the one other enhanced guy, who had just gotten up. The blood splattered all over me.

It was an alpha.

In all the time we had been fighting these things, only three alphas had ever been sighted in battle. Each of these battles had been pivotal towards preventing occupation of large areas in Asia.

Each of those battles had been lost.

Not a single alpha had ever been killed in the field.

And as it pounced upon the soldier, who had been disabled by some body part of the crushed guy flying into him, I knew that my time was nigh.

And I also knew that if I died, I was going to die as awesomely as freaking possible.

So as the alpha tore apart the guy, I leapt, put my grenade launcher against what passed for it's head, and, at point blank range, pulled the trigger.

Dying feels a lot like waking up after dozing off in the VTOL. It feels exactly like that.  
I opened my eyes, and saw the dull, grey, metallic roof of the ship. I looked down and saw the same people who had died a few minutes ago.

And determined that yeah, That was a freaking dream.

I still kept my grenade launcher loaded though. I joked the whole way. All these forests and mountains got boring the first time, and weren't any more interesting the second time.

That worried me.

Why did I recognize the scenery? Why did I swear I could see a compact EM pulse sword hidden in the fourth person's exosuit? Why was that person's face covered by a hood?

Idiot that I am, I assumed it was coincidence.

Which meant I was so stunned by the appearance of the same mimic in the same spot that I got my head chopped off before I could react.

Yep, It's official.

Looks like I respawn.

Holy hell.

Of all the days for it to happen….

Most would expect me to experience some kind of existential crises, but really, I've gone to Australia. Not much fazes me now.

So, as we touched down in that village for the third time, I used my glorious swag to convince the soldier to let us go via another route, because seriously, at this point, the other one is freaking boring.

"No."  
"But why?"  
"This one is the quickest. The mimics may attack the forward operating base any day now. WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU DELAYING US? ARE YOU A TRAITOR? IS THAT THE KIND OF STUPID ASS-"  
Y'know, shooting yourself in the head to escape that guys speeches is actually pretty effective when you know you can't die.

Oh well, second time's the charm, right?

"Mate, there are no candy canes down the other route. I've checked."

Guess I got that saying wrong.

"Yes I do love America. No, I will not let you go alone. You are not free, you have to follow orders."  
Eh, fourth usually works.  
"Just because you can predict everything I say, can say it before I say it, and know that this guy is actually a PR specialist, it doesn't mean that you are secretly a time traveling , tie this guy up!"  
"WHY ARE YOU POINTING A GRENADE LAUNCHER AT M-"  
"You sir, are and idiot."  
Finally, approximately fifteen bajillion suicides later.

I swear my tongue is turning silver.

I finally managed to get the whole team, including the soldier, who's name I have learned is Liam Neeson, to agree that going via another route is safer due to extremely fake mimicology credentials, fake mimic tracks, Jesus, and America.

Holy shit, that took a while.

And now, walking away from that same village again, I decide that this path is, without question, just as boring as the other one. 


	3. Chapter 3

I take my last statement back. This path is even more boring than the other one.

You may be wondering, how the hell is this guy not freaking the fuck out? Why is he so calm and collected? Why is he so awesome?

The short answer, is that that is just how much of a badass I am.

The real answer is that I cut out the thirty or so lives I spent experiencing an existential crisis, because even though I've died(for more realsies than here, but less realsies than a normal person) three times, I still can't write for shit. If I did tell you about that crisis, you would be bored. Anyway, with that out of the way, I must say, the path was even more fucking boring than the other one.

The other one had stuff on the sides like trees and stuff.

And a nice-ish view.

This one was just plain boring. It went straight through two mountains, and was, without question, the safer, but slower, route. The mountains were way harder for the mimics to burrow through, but the other members of our little crew were complaining about how the FOB could be gone by the time we got there.

All except Rita. In the whole trip she hadn't said a word. Not a single utterance had come from her. To me it was obvious she was up to something. She was even secluding herself by staying at the back of the group!

So I sidled up to her, and said-

"So Rita, how ya doin?" With the most sexy wink I could manage.

Yeah, no matter how good I had gotten at talking in my attempts to convince Liam to go this way, my sexy skills still sucked.

She stared at me then answered,

"We need to talk."  
"Kay."  
She dragged me off down a goat path.

Ooh looks like she took my wink to hear-

She took out a silenced pistol and shot me in the head.

RITA, DID YOU KNOW HOW MANY TIMES I HAD TO RETRY THAT SPEECH CHECK TO CONVINCE LIAM?

After coming back to life, I learned swordfighting,(by fighting Rita, who has a backup sword, with her own sword) aiming,(by shooting Rita in the face a dozen times), and how to get the ROCKET LAUNCHER AND SNIPER RIFLE I HAD IN MY ARMOR WITHOUT EVEN KNOWING IT TO WORK.

SERIOUSLY.

IT WAS IN MY BODY, AND I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW IT EXISTED.

Anyway, I came to the decision that before I went on the trip through the other route again, I was gonna steal Rita's backup sword. I had gotten pretty good at parrying, stabbing, jumping really high, and in general being a ninja after stealing Rita's sword.

Anyway, my tries went really well!

I got shot in the face one hundred and three times, stabbed in the heart(and face) fifteen times, and got kicked in the jewels more times than I could count.

Seriously, that girl hates my jewels.

Anyway, at long last, after grinding all that time to level up my pickpocketing, I finally got my hand on that sword AND managed to convince Liam in the same go. The reason I failed so many times is that Rita keeps her sword in the same general area of the ass. And as everyone knows, butts can sense nearby hands from around twenty centimeters away.

ANYWAY, AFTER I FINALLY GOT ALL THAT STUFF DONE, we, at long last, were back on that boring- ass path. This time, I said nothing to Rita. Absolutely nothing.

At this point in my existence I hated her with every fiber of my being.

AND OF COURSE TOM CRUISE HAD TO TALK TO HER. OF COURSE. WHY NOT?

I kept my eye on them. A very close eye. A very very-

"Dude, what are you doing?"

"Shut up Cruise, she's evil."  
"What?"  
"I know. Trust me, I know."  
"Actually, she's kinda nic-"  
"EVIL! I HAVE FELLED BY HER HAND BEFORE!"

And of course she was stunned as hell. She stared at me in a whole new light. It was like she was surprised or something.

"Cruise, could you go for a moment?"  
"Alright then…. And thanks."  
I stared at her, then asked-

"Rita, are you going to shoot me in the face again?"

"How many times have you lived through this?"  
"Oh, around two hundred."  
She stared at me like I was freaking bonkers.

"And you only got this far? You only made it to this point?"  
"Well, to be fair, I have infinite time. I would say learning how to use a badass sword is good usage of my infinite time."

She frowned, rubbing her forehead as she walked. Yeah, she was giving me the what-the-fuck-were-you-thinking look.

"Listen. We have to get to Doctor Carter. He's at the forward operating base. He'll explain. But long story short, the thing that's making time reverse is called the omega. It does it whenever an alpha is killed. This way it can ensure that every single major battle is won flawlessly. However, it can get tricked. If you got some of an alpha's blood mixed in yours, the omega would think that you were alpha. You lose the talent if someone else's blood enters your bloodstream. It dilutes the alpha DNA too much. And eventually, it's going to realize that you aren't an alpha.."

"Eh, I'm doing the best I can."  
"No, you aren't."  
"How the hell would you know?"  
"IT HAPPENED TO ME." She snarled in anger."How do you think I killed hundreds of mimics? No normal soldier would be able to do that. And so, we won Verdun. But really, the mimics made that happen to trick us into believing that an all out assault was viable."  
I stared at her, confused.

"What do you mean?"

"All this compulsory enlistment bullshit, all the forced exosuits, it's for one final push. And when that push fails…"  
"We're fucked."

"So yeah, you have to convince everyone to cancel the thing we ruined our world for. Best of luck."

Authors Note: Could anyone, anywhere, please comment? Or leave a review? Or do anything to point out how bad my story is? Pleaaaaaaaase? Criticism means a lot to me.

.


	4. Chapter 4

Yeah, that ended in less time than there used to be between explosions in a Michael Bay movie.

Just as the word 'luck' left Rita's mouth, I got stabbed in the butt by a mimic. Really. No joke.

The mimic sneaked up on me, and impaled me by putting a tentacle right up my-

You get the idea.

And as I sat in the dark interior of the VTOL, being yelled at by Liam, I wondered.

Are mimics sentient?

Is one of them secretly the crazed butt stabber?

Why did I enjoy that so-

"IF YOU DON'T LEAVE THE VTOL RIGHT, FUCKING, NOW, I SWEAR TO GOD THAT I WILL SHOOT YOU!"

And I was like, pfft, naw, he would-

And then I took two bullets.

One where the sun don't shine, and one in the face.

After I came back, I ensured he got as good as he gave.

Rita stabbed me, and due to my acrobatics as I shot Liam, I was, once again, impaled through the butt.

I don't know why, but I wanted to do that again. Just a little bit.

I waited for them to get off, threw the pilot out, and took control of the VTOL.

It hit a mountain in ten seconds flat.

*SOME TIME LATER*

"Fine." I had convinced the pilot(again, for the fifty-third time) that flak was an illusion, and that I should pilot the VTOL. As he knew, I had flying experience from the Third World War(I didn't) and had over seven hundred sim- hours logged.(To be honest, I have no fucking idea what sim- hour is.) As I flew, dodging every single explosion like a friggin ninja(because this was the fifty-third time I was doing it) I had a little chat with the pilot. I learned that his name was Steve. He wore a red shirt under his pilot suit, and had a wife and kid back home.

Yeah, if watching movies had taught me anything I was pretty sure that he was gonna die soon.

Then, just as I crossed the point I had gotten past my best distance, I experienced a headache which hurt more than getting impaled through the butt by a mimic(which wasn't that distracting, since being impaled through the butt don't feel that bad) and heard voices about as loud as my average sexual partner.(Heh, kidding.I'm forever alone.)I lost control, and turned around to tell everyone how fucked we were, only to be stopped by a beautiful sight.

Rita and Cage were making out.

This blew my mind so much that I almost didn't notice that there was a hallucination of a giant blue thingy in front of my eyes.

And then we died.

Anyway, the next time, I kept turning around in order to ensure that I got a picture-perfect view of their inevitable banging(which would be right in front of Liam and Steve) so I didn't notice the voice in my head until after we crashed into more flak, at which point I realized that neither Liam nor Steve were so turned on by them making out that they would want all humans to die.

So several kabillion tries later, I LEARNED THAT THAT WHOLE THINGS WAS A FUCKING WASTE OF TIME! WHOOP DEE DOO! OF COURSE, THAT DON'T MATTER, SINCE I HAVE ALL THE TIME IN THE UNIVERSE, EXCEPT SOMEHOW I DON'T!

We were too freaking late.

Everyone had left, as were informed by some bored exosuit repair guy. It was our bad luck that we wouldn't get to rack up any rad kills in operation MARKET GARDEN 2 ELECTRIC BOOGALOO.

Rita was all devastated.

Yeah, all the people who were drafted are, for all purposes, dead. Whoop-de-doo. I really couldn't care anymore.

'Rita, where's the science guy?'

'Whu-' Oh right, she doesn't know me yet.

"Me kill alpha. You tell me about science dude."  
"Bu-"  
"You take me to him."  
"…..Whatever, fine."  
She shuddered.

"Thousands are dead. For all purposes, we've lost."  
"Eh" I replied. "We can still win the war."  
"Kay, Cruise, cmon."

Cruise was also confused, but he followed me pretty readily through the tarmac when he heard that Rita was coming too.

Oh, and he was also pretty interested in my idea of saving the world.

Back then, I hoped he wasn't expecting me to save via repopulation, because a threesome wasn't in the plan. However, I dare say that adding it in wouldn't be too 'hard'.

So, after about half an hour, we reached a room hidden behind like, a dozen bookshelves, which made me wonder if a threesome was Rita's plan.

Then we went into a bigger room, WHICH WAS FREAKING AWESOME.

The walls were all made of metal. They looked freaking awesome.

There was a holotable in the middle of the room. That too, was freaking awesome.

There were glass tables. Awesome.

There was a sciencey guy sitting on one of the awesome chairs. Not so awesome.

Ask me how I realized he was a science guy, and I would answer he was wearing a bow tie.

Boring guys dig bow ties.

And so do doctors, but the only kind of interesting doctors are the ones whoa are actually police and/or murderers.

I ignored him for five minutes, because, as everyone knows, it takes sciency types five minutes to get to the point.

So you can imagine how surprised I was when I heard the words.

"That's it, any questions?"  
Long story short, he repeated the whole thing.

The basic gist of it was that the thingy doing the time turny stuff is called an Omega, and it turned back time whenever an Alpha dies. Apparently, it thought that I was an Alpha because some of its blood got in me.

Cool.

So since the Omega spawns mimics, it clearly has to be where they all come from, so, I announced, with a shit-eating grin on my face,

"I have a plan."

I told them the plan. They didn't like it.

THEY REALLY, REALLY DIDN'T LIKE IT.

A/N-Pls review. Pls. Also, you need to be a registered user, or I can't reply to you.


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